“Psychic Trauma”

Front page photo by Tom Spray

Cloud Nothings' "Psychic Trauma" opens with a gentle, slack-wristed two-guitar strum that you could almost mistake for Pavement. Dylan Baldi's voice still has that teen-wolf wildness stalking its edges—his mouth opens into a yowl on the "psy" of "psy-chic trauma"—but for forty seconds, you are in a mellow place, some friends passing long-necked beers on a stoop. Then, drummer Jayson Gerycz inserts a fish hook into the song's mouth and pulls backwards; the song drops into minor-key, and the song begins, steadily, to speed up. Gerycz's drumming is exhilarating, both relentlessly on-beat and just-moments ahead. "I can't believe what you're telling me is true/ My mind is always racing listening to you," Baldi sings, and the band surges in sympathy, pressing its foot heavier on the odometer until the needle floats and the scenery begins flashing by too quickly. It's the sound of an incoming neurological lightning storm.